and there isn't a one of them that allows the farmers to bring their
stuff. They rent the farmers' land for themselves. For miles and miles
you can't find a farmer that hasn't rented his farm.
Mr. Hegerle: You have to have the vegetables at the right time.
Mrs. Glenzke: They use the farmer's team and give him all the assistance
they can. It does away with having them all at one time. I have seen
twenty-five farmers come at one time. I don't see how you manage it.
Mr. Hegerle: We have had a lot of trouble, and we are growing some of
our vegetables.
Mrs. Glenzke: You can raise four successive crops of peas on the same
ground, and you can make that work all right. They used to can squash,
corn, tomatoes, and they have got down to peas entirely.
A Member: Doesn't most of that trouble arise from the low prices?
Mr. Hegerle: No, not entirely. The price when contracted is
satisfactory, and we find in our experience in growing our own
vegetables we can grow them cheaper than what we pay to the growers. But
we wouldn't grow any if we could get the growers to bring them in when
they are in the right shape. When corn is at a certain stage to make a
good canned article it has got to be brought in that day, and if the
farmer don't bring it, if he has a state fair on or a wedding or a
funeral or something and delays it a day or two, then it is all off;
that corn is lost.
Mr. Sauter: I would like to know which is the best beans for canning,
the yellow or the green?
Mr. Hegerle: Well, we prefer the Refugee, both in wax and green. We
prefer them because they are the best in flavor we have.
Mr. Sauter: Which is the best, the flat or the round of the wax?
Mr. Hegerle: Round is preferred by the trade, by the grocers or jobbers.
I have kept the flat wax beans for my own use of those that we can.
Mr. Sauter: Don't the flat ones bring a little more than the round ones?
Mr. Hegerle: Well, probably the first or second picking, but you can't
pick them as often as the other variety. The Refugee you can pick four
or five or six times, and the flat beans can only be picked two times.
Mr. Anderson: I would like to ask what you pay for beans for canning
purposes?
Mr. Hegerle: We pay from 3/4 of a cent up to 4 cents a pound. Sometimes
a man brings in some that are almost too good to throw away, they are
big and stringy, and rather than send them home we think we have got to
take them and pay him something for them. We would rather not have them,
and we usually dump them. Starting from that we pay up to three and four
cents. Four cents for well sorted and mostly small beans. They have got
to be graded, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. Number 1 is the smallest, and they bring
the best price. We pay in proportion to the number 1's and 2's in the
load.
Mr. Sauter: What tomato do you find the best for canning?
Mr. Hegerle: Well, the Earliana.
Mr. Sauter: Do you have any trouble with those bursting the cans?
Mr. Hegerle: No, sir.
Mr. Sauter: We had that trouble in canning for our own use. They burst
the can, they expanded.
Mr. Hegerle: That is the fault of the man, not of the tomato.
Mr. Sauter: They were picked and canned the same day.
Mr. Hegerle: Probably not sterilized enough. Sterilizing fruit is the
main thing. A tomato is really one of the easiest things to can.
Mr. Sauter: In other tomatoes we don't have that trouble. It seems to
hurt the sale of them to the women folks.
Mr. Hegerle: Sterilize them a little more.
Mr. Sauter: About how long would you cook them?
Mr. Hegerle: I am not the man at the wheel on that part. I don't know.
We have a superintendent that handles that part of it.
Top-Grafting.
AN EXERCISE LED BY A. J. PHILIPS, WEST SALEM, WIS., AT 1915 ANNUAL
MEETING OF THE SOCIETY.
Mr. Philips: When I first talked top-working in Minnesota, Professor
Green and some of the knowing ones felt a little leary about it, but I
kept right on just the same. The most I have got out of top-working is
the pleasure I have had, doing the work and seeing the fruit grow. I
inherited a love for top-working from my father. He used to top-work
some, and after I began planting trees my old friend Wilcox used to come
and visit me, and he was strong on top-working on hardy roots. I used to
make a little sport of the old man, but no more I guess than people have
made of me for doing the same thing. He made me a proposition about
forty years ago. He says, "You plant ten trees of a good variety to
top-work on--I will pick them out for you--and then you top-work them
with Wealthy, and then plant ten Wealthy trees right beside them on the
same land and in the same rows, right together, and see which will do
the best." At the end of ten years the Wealthy on their own roots had
borne good crops but they began to fail, while the top-worked ones (on
Virginia crab) were just at their best bearing at that time. Professor
Green came and looked them over at the end of fifteen years. The first
ten on their own roots were dead, and the others grafted on Virginia
bore apples until they were twenty-five years old. That convinced me
that top-working in certain cases would pay if done on a hardy stock.
I have seen a Northwestern Greening tree that was crotched, split apart
and lay down when it was loaded with apples, in Waupacca County, but
when grafted onto a stock whose limbs grew out horizontal it will carry
a load of fruit until it ripens without injury.
I won a first prize at the Omaha exposition. My apples were not much
better, but they were top-worked and were a little larger. I have some
specimens here that show the practical difference. These grew on my own
land. I found in showing apples in Milwaukee at their fairs that I could
always get the best specimens from the top-worked trees. That convinced
me that you could grow better fruit that way.
Mr. Brackett: What age do you commence the grafting?
Mr. Philips: I like to commence at two years old. I like to set a
Virginia crab and let it grow one year and then commence top-working,
and top-work about half the first year and the balance the second.
Mr. Brackett: Is that in the nursery row?
Mr. Philips: No, where I am going to have it grow. I have found the
Virginia--and the Hibernal, too, either of them, very vigorous trees.
The Virginia is very vigorous. You dig up a Virginia tree, and you find
a great mass of roots; it has strength, and it grows fast. I have
top-worked about forty varieties on the Virginia and some on Hibernal.
Mr. Cady was there and looked it over, Prof. Green was there and Mr.
Kellogg has been there a number of times--and I always ask them this
question: If they found any trees where the top had outgrown the stock?
I have never seen an instance where the top of the tree put onto a
Virginia crab outgrew the Virginia. I have some in my garden now where
the union is so perfect it takes a man with good eyesight to see where
it is.
[Illustration: A.J. Philips, West Salem, Wis. Photo taken in his
eighty-second year.]
Mr. Brackett: If you had Virginia trees twelve years old would you
top-work them?
Mr. Philips: Yes, sir, out towards the end of the limbs.
Mr. Brackett: Suppose the limbs were too big on the stock you are going
to top-work, how would you do then?
Mr. Philips: I practice cutting off those larger limbs and letting young
shoots grow. Mr. Dartt did a good deal of top-working, and he top-worked
large limbs. I told him he was making an old fool of himself, but he
wouldn't believe it. He would cut off limbs as large as three inches and
put in four scions and at the end of two years they had only grown eight
inches each. I have put in one scion in a Virginia limb that was about
3/4-inch in diameter, and had it that season grow eight feet and one
inch. That is the best growth I ever had.
The reason that my attention was called to the Virginia as being
vigorous was, when I attended the meeting of this society about thirty
years ago--I think it was at Rochester--Mr. A. W. Sias, who was an active
nurseryman and one of the pioneers of this society, offered a premium of
$5.00 for the best growth of a crab apple tree, and then, in order to
win the money himself (which he did), he brought in some limbs of a
Virginia that were six feet long that grew in one season; and I figured
then that a tree that could make that growth in one season was a
vigorous tree, which it is. Nothing can outgrow it, and that was one
reason why I commenced using it.
Mr. Brackett: I have one trouble in grafting the Wealthy to the Hibernal
on account of its making that heavy growth. I lost some of them by
blight on that account.
Mr. Philips: Which was blighted, the Hibernal?
Mr. Brackett: No, the Wealthy made such a big growth that it blighted. I
cut the top back and put grafts in, and they made a good growth, but
they blighted. Did you have any trouble like that?
Mr. Philips: No, sir, I think my soil is different from yours. My soil
is of a poor order, a heavy clay, and it don't make the growth.
Mr. Brackett: How many of those large limbs could you cut off in one
year and graft?
Mr. Philips: Cut about half of the growth of the tree if not too large,
don't cut enough to weaken the tree too much. Next year cut the balance
off.
Mr. Crosby: In grafting, suppose you get scions from an Eastern state,
what time would you get those scions, say, from Maine; Maine is on a
parallel with Minnesota?
Mr. Philips: I prefer cutting scions in the fall before they freeze.
Mr. Crosby: How would you keep those scions?
Mr. Philips: I have tried a great many ways, in dirt and burying them in
the ground, but the best way to keep them is to put them in boxes and
put some leaves among them. Leaves will preserve them all winter if you
keep them moist enough, wet them a little once in ten days just to keep
them damp. Leaves are a more natural protection than anything else.
Don't you think so, Mr. Brackett?
Mr. Brackett: Yes, sir.
Mr. Crosby: What kind of a graft do you usually make?
Mr. Philips: I have put in some few whip-grafts but use the cleft-graft
with the larger limbs.
Mr. Wallace: Is the Patten Greening a good tree to graft onto?
Mr. Philips: It is better for that than most anything else where I live.
It is hardy and makes a good growth. If I had Patten Greenings, many of
them, I would top-work them. The apple is not a good seller where I
live.
Mr. Kellogg: What was the condition of that tree where Dartt put in four
scions?
Mr. Philips: They grew eight inches each in two years, then died. Those
scions were too weak to take possession of the big limb. It is like
putting an ox yoke onto a calf. They can't adapt themselves. They hadn't
strength to take hold of that limb and grow. That was a good
illustration. Put a graft on a small limb, and it will assimilate and
grow better than if you take a large one.
Mr. Brackett: Where you put in more than one scion in a limb, is it
feasible to leave more than one to grow?
Mr. Philips: No, not if they grow crotchy. I let them grow one year to
get firmly established and then I take off the lower one. I have trees
in my garden I have done that with, and you couldn't see the crotch. It
grows right over.
Mr. Brackett: I have seen a great many of them where both of them were
growing.
Mr. Philips: It makes a bad tree, as bad as a crotchy tree.
Mr. Kellogg: Isn't it better to dehorn it and get some new shoots to
graft?
Mr. Philips: Yes, sir, and if they are _very old_ the best way is to set
out new trees.
Mr. Crosby: In getting scions are there any distinguishing marks between
a vigorous scion and one not vigorous?
Mr. Philips: Nothing, only the general appearance. If I see a scion that
looks deficient I pass it by.
Mr. Erkel: Would it be practical to use water shoots for scions?
Mr. Philips: I should rather not. I have always had scions enough to
avoid using water shoots. They are an unnatural growth; I wouldn't use
them. Take a good healthy scion.
Mr. Kellogg: Would scions from bearing trees with the blossom buds on do
you any good?
Mr. Philips: Well, not with a blossom bud on; I wouldn't use such a
scion. Some people say if you cut your scions from a bearing tree they
will bear quicker, but I never saw any difference.
Inasmuch as this question has been asked a great many times by people,
what age to plant a tree, whether it is best to plant young trees or
trees four or five years old, I will say I am in favor of young trees,
and I am in favor of grafting a tree when it is young.
Mr. Brackett: Isn't that a general opinion in the West where they make a
business of planting large orchards?
Mr. Philips: I think so. I think that is the case.
Mrs. Cadoo: Can you graft onto a Martha crab and have success with that?
Mr. Philips: I never had very good success with the Martha crab; it
isn't vigorous enough.
Mrs. Cadoo: We had a tree twelve years and got seven apples.
Mr. Philips: Well, I think I got eight. (Laughter.) I believe with the
Martha crab if you will plant it where there are other crab trees around
it you get a pretty good crop, but not if you isolate it. I have an idea
it is not self-fertilizing. I think that is the trouble with the Martha.
It is a nice crab.
Mr. Brackett: You showed the difference in size there, those top-worked
and those not--don't you think that is because of cutting the top back?
You throw a heavy growth in there, which makes the fruit that much
larger?
Mr. Philips: Well, it might be.
Mr. Street: Have you had any experience in budding in August or first of
September on those trees?
Mr. Philips: Yes, sir, I do a little budding every year. Budding is a
hard thing to do, that is, it is a particular thing to get the bud
matured enough and still have sufficient sap to slip.
Mr. Street: Would you put it on the top or bottom side of the limb?
Mr. Philips: I would put it on the upper side of the limb every time,
but I would put it a little further from the trunk of the tree than I
would to graft for the reason, if the bud fails you have two chances,
and you have that same limb to cut off and graft next year.
[Illustration: Winesap apples top-worked on Peerless, grown at
Northfield, Minn.]
Mr. Johnson: I want to ask if it has a tendency to make the apple any
earlier? Virginia crab is an early bloomer, and would grafting it with
Wealthy make it bloom earlier?
Mr. Philips: I hardly think so. I think it is a great deal as it was
with the man that had the boots. Some told him his boots would wear
longer if he greased them, and some one else told him they would wear
longer if he did not. So he greased one and not the other, and the one
that he greased wore fifteen minutes longer than the other. (Laughter.)
I don't think it makes much difference. I tell you what it does do. You
graft a McMahon onto a Virginia and instead of having the McMahon its
usual color, you will get a very nice blush on it.
Mr. Erkel: Is the Duchess a good stock to graft onto?
Mr. Philips: I haven't found it very good. It is hardly vigorous enough
for a stock.
Mr. Erkel: You mentioned Patten's Greening a few minutes ago. Isn't that
considered a rather short-lived tree?
Mr. Philips: Not with me it hasn't been. I set some thirty years ago. I
never had a Patten's Greening injured with the cold. It is very hardy.
Mr. Street: How about the Brier's Sweet crab? I grafted some last year
and had a larger percentage of the scions live on those than on the
Hibernal.
Mr. Philips: You wouldn't get as good a growth afterwards. The scions on
the Virginia would grow better and have a better top. I don't think the
Brier's Sweet is as vigorous as Virginia.
Mr. M'Clelland: I grafted on 120 Hibernals this spring and got hardly
one failure.
Mr. Philips: You did good work.
Mr. M'Clelland: Made a growth of three to four feet, some of them.
Mr. Philips: That is good.
Mr. M'Clelland: Have you anything as good?
Mr. Philips: If I had Hibernals I would graft them, but if I had to set
something on purpose for grafting I would set Virginias. I have had
better success with that variety for stocks.
Mr. Kellogg: Too big a growth on the graft is liable to be injured in
the winter, is it not?
Mr. Philips: Too vigorous a growth on the tree is liable to get injured
in the winter anyway. I like to see a good growth. I like to see it grow
and then pinch it back in the fall. You can pinch it back a good deal
easier when it has made a good growth than to make it grow big enough.
Mr. Street: I would like to know whether we should force all of the
growth into the scion the first year where we graft on trees that have
been set two years.
Mr. Philips: One of the pleasures of doing top-working is to watch the
growth of the grafts. I did a good deal of that on Sunday. You might do
worse than communing with nature. You watch them same as you watch the
growth of anything else, and if you think the graft is growing too fast
let some of the shoots on the stock grow to take part of the sap, but if
you think it is growing too slow and these shoots are robbing it, cut
them off. I like a good growth on grafts; it looks more like doing
business.
Mr. Street: But the second year would you keep all of the growth in the
graft?
Mr. Philips: Yes, sir, the second year I would, and if it makes too
large a growth pinch off the end. I put in some for a neighbor this
season, and I go down and see to them every two weeks. If I thought they
made too much growth in August I pinched them back so as to make them
ripen up quicker. I don't like to have them grow too late; as Mr.
Kellogg said, frost will get them. (Applause.)
Spraying the Orchard.
HON. H. M. DUNLAP, SAVOY, ILLS.
(Continued from March No.)
Then just as soon as your bloom falls, just as soon as the blossom
petals fall, then you want to spray again. You should use arsenate of
lead along with your lime-sulphur in both sprayings, because your
arsenate of lead will take care of a great many insects that injure the
fruit. The first spraying, immediately before the bloom, with arsenate
of lead is for the curculio, what is called the Palmer worm, for canker
worm--if you have any of them--the tent caterpillar, the leaf roller and
various other insects that injure the fruit and the foliage. The spray
just immediately after the bloom in addition to fungous is a codling
moth spray. To get rid of the codling moth worm you use the arsenate of
lead. The codling moth egg hatches shortly after the bloom falls, and
the little worm instinctively goes into the blossom end of the apple,
because that is the only place it can enter the apple at that particular
time. Just why it does not enter on the side of the apple I can not say,
but there is a little fuzz on the outer side of the apple at that stage
of growth that perhaps prevents their getting in, and that fuzz as the
apple grows larger disappears, so a little later they can enter on the
side or at any other part of the apple that they choose.
[Illustration: Hon. H. M. Dunlap, Savoy, Ills.]
When the blossoms fall the apples stand upright on the tree, and the
little pointed leaves that are on the blossom end of the apples, that we
call the calyx, are all open, and at that time you can spray so as to
get the arsenate of lead on the inside. Within a week or ten days after
the bloom falls these sepals, or little leaf points, gradually close
together until they are all closed up tight, and after that you can't
get your spray in there. After the worm hatches he gets between the
little leaves of the calyx and goes on the inside of the apple and into
its center. You want to have your poison ready for Mr. Worm when he
enters the blossom end of the apple, and the more thoroughly and more
effectively you spray the better are the results.
It has been said that if you spray thoroughly at that time, that that is
the only spray you really need for the codling moth worm. I don't agree
with that, as there is always a second brood of worms. I use the
arsenate of lead along with the lime-sulphur for all these sprays,
before the bloom and after the bloom, and if you don't spray more than
three times you will be doing yourself a good service, and it will well
pay you. In some parts of the country they spray as high as seven or
eight times in the commercial orchards, but I would say in a farmer's
orchard three times would be enough, once before the bloom and twice
later, and you will notice the good results.
There are other sprays besides these, but none perhaps of any importance
to you up here except the winter spray for the San Jose scale, if you
have that, and I noticed one or two specimens out there that seemed to
have the scale upon them. That spray should be done either in the fall
or early winter or late winter while the trees are dormant. That has to
be put on of winter spray strength, using lime-sulphur or some of the
other San Jose scale sprays without the arsenate of lead, as you don't
need to use the lead with this spray.
Now, as I stated to start with, these remarks ought to be appropriate to
your needs and to make them so it would be a good deal better for me to
give you the opportunity of asking questions or of discussing this
question of spraying yourselves rather than for me to go into this
subject any further and not know just exactly what you would like to
listen to. If you have any questions to ask I would be glad to answer
them if I can.
Mr. Horton: What proportion of the lime-sulphur and arsenate of lead do
you use?
Mr. Dunlap: If we get the commercial brand of lime-sulphur we use it in
the proportion of three gallons of that commercial mixture to 100
gallons of water and for the arsenate of lead in the same spray tank at
same time we use four pounds of arsenate of lead to the 100 gallons.
Mr. Horton: Have you ever carried over lime-sulphur from one year to
another?
Mr. Dunlap: Yes, sir, we often do that, carry it over until the next
year. It wants to be kept where it will not freeze.
Mr. Horton: Is there much danger of evaporation so it would be too
strong to use next year?
Mr. Dunlap: Your barrel should be kept bunged tight.
Mr. Richardson: Mr. Dunlap fails to say anything about dormant sprays.
Don't you use dormant sprays?
Mr. Dunlap: I was just speaking about the dormant or winter spray. When
you spray in the winter time use lime-sulphur or scalicide.
Mr. Richardson: Another thing: I take a little exception to what Mr.
Dunlap says in advocating buying a spraying machine collectively in the
neighborhood, for the simple reason that it is necessary to spray at one
particular time, at the vital time just before the blossoms fall and at
the time they have fallen. We have found it almost impossible to do any
spraying for anybody except ourselves at that time. We talked that
matter over before we bought spraying machines.
You said you wondered whether there were any apples grown here
commercially. Out of our town we shipped this year eight car-loads of
apples. We have three power sprays in our orchard, and we talked that
matter over before we bought them, about buying collectively, and we
decided it was absolutely impossible to do it. I don't think it is
feasible for a small grower to depend on that kind of thing because he
may be disappointed. My theory is for each one to have his own sprayer,
large or small. Another thing, we find a pressure of 200 pounds is
better than spraying without that pressure; we get better results.
Mr. Dunlap: The gentleman misunderstood me. I said where you have just
small orchards you could do it collectively. Of course, I do not
advocate where a man has enough to have use for a spray machine for his
own orchard that he get one collectively. That would be a great mistake,
but where a man has only fifty trees in a neighborhood where there are
no big orchards, it would be better for a dozen or more to combine. If
you can get around with it in a week you will be all right but not
longer than that.
Mr. Richardson: I beg to differ with you just the same. I think if you
want to spray you must spray at the time; it might rain the next day,
and you might miss the whole season.
Mr. Dunlap: There are a good many people who don't like to go to the
expense of a spray machine just for fifty trees or 100 trees. If they
would combine with a few neighbors they would do some spraying work,
otherwise they wouldn't do any at all. If a man will buy a machine and
do his own spraying, why, that is certainly the best thing to do, but if
he won't do that it is better to combine with his neighbors and do it
than for none of them to do it. Community spraying is the best thing to
do if you have only small orchards.
Mr. Dyer: What pressure would you recommend in spraying for codling moth
where arsenate of lead is used?
Mr. Dunlap: You can do effective spraying all the way from sixty pounds
to 200 pressure. My preference is about 150 pounds. I have known
instances where considerable injury was done by using too high pressure.
We have sprayed at 225 pounds, but we have given that up. It is not as
good as from 150 to 175 pounds.